Absolute and Conditional Convergence in Both Zones of Cyprus: Statistical Convergence and Insitutional Divergence

This paper implements a time series econometric model to determine the timing of full convergence of incomes and output per capita and total factor productivity in the North and South of Cyprus, regardless of whether there is a political settlement or not. A significant dimension of the paper is its emphasis on institutional convergence, going beyond econometric or statistical convergence. Our results reveal that North Cyprus needs 17 years to catch up to full per capita income convergence, 16 years for per capita output convergence and 17 years for full total factor productivity (technological) convergence. The time‐series findings demonstrate that statistical convergence is occurring quite rapidly as the North is catching up to the average income and productivity levels of the South, which may confirm evidence of unconditional (beta) or absolute convergence, but there are significant differences between North and South in savings, tastes, population growth and technology. Most significantly, there are institutional differences highlighted in the study with a Two‐sector model of gate‐keeping and rent‐seeking which validates the premises of conditional convergence. Put differently, there are strong forces of divergence hidden behind our statistical findings.     

Differing patterns of industrial dynamics: New Zealand,Ohio, and Sweden, 1978–1994

New Zealand, Ohio, and Sweden have experienced sharply divergent macroeconomic developments since the early 1970s. During the 1980s, New Zealand went from being the most heavily regulated and protectionist OECD country to one of the least regulated and most open economies in the world. Ohio suffered severe economic downturns when its major industries (steel, automobiles, and machinery) went through devastating crises. Since then, a major restructuring has taken place, and manufacturing output, exports, and employment have generally grown faster than in the United States as a whole. Sweden had an outstanding industrial growth record for several decades until the mid-1970s but then suffered economic setbacks from which it has not yet fully recovered. Industrial output declined for several years, resumed growth in the early 1980s but then stagnated again in the early 1990s.The object of this paper is to study the microeconomic responses to these differences in the macroeconomic environment. While manufacturing employment declined by more than 20 percent in each country, the number of establishments in manufacturing stayed constant in Sweden while it declined by 9 percent in Ohio and more than doubled in New Zealand.While there are certainly structural differences in the composition of the manufacturing sector in the three economies, these differences explain only a small portion of the differences in development patterns. Only a handful of 3-digit ISIC industries grew in terms of employment in each country between 1978 and 1993, but the growth industries were not the same across countries, and there were substantial differences in the growth patterns within these industries.     

Industrial Specialization,Catching‐up and Labour Market Dynamics

This paper presents a dynamic model as a heuristic tool to discuss some issues of changing industrial specialization which arise in the context of catching‐up processes of (technologically) less advanced economies and the impact which various scenarios of such catching‐up processes might have on the labour market dynamics both in the advanced and in the catching‐up economies. In analysing the evolution of international specialization, we demonstrate the twin pressures exerted upon the industrial structures of “northern” economies: competition from “type‐A southern” economies, which maintain a comparative competitive strength in labour‐intensive and less skill‐intensive branches, and competition from “type‐B catching‐up” economies, whose catching‐up increasingly focuses upon branches in which the initial productivity gaps and hence the scope for catching‐up are the highest. The contrast between these two catching‐up scenarios allows the explicit analysis of the implications of “comparative advantage switchovers” between northern and southern (type B) economies for labour market dynamics.     

Technological Diffusion and Growth among Nations: the Two Stages of Catching Up

The international diffusion of technology is fundamental to an understanding of the nature of technical progress and why growth differs among advanced industrialised countries. In the present technological gap model, innovation is supposed to take place in the leading country. In countries following behind, knowledge growth depends on the spill-over of technology from the leading country. The diffusion mechanism is first studied in a growth accounting framework. In a second step, a complete growth model is constructed in which there are two stages of catching up (falling behind). One involves closing (widening) the technological gap, the other one involves convergence (divergence) in the capital-labour ratio.     

Value co‐creation between foreign firms and indigenous small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kazakhstan's oil and gas industry: The role of information technology spillovers

Study related to the extractive sector still plays a limited role in the mainstream international business (IB) and management literature, with even less focus on ongoing liberalization and digitalization in the industry. This article was motivated by the question of how collaboration between foreign and indigenous oil and gas (O&G) companies can support small‐sized and medium‐sized indigenous technological development. The main contribution of this article is the development of a model that explains how different actors can cocreate value in the ecosystem of the O&G industry through digital technologies. A three‐stage qualitative–interpretive method based on interviews with industry experts was adopted to build three vignette case studies. This article proposes what companies and the government could do to increase the competitiveness of the local economy, diversify from O&G into high technological industries, and support industrial development through information and communication technologies (ICT).     

产业国际竞争力文献综述

世界经济全球化,一体化的特征在当今的世界环境中表现显著,产业国际竞争成为世界范围内的一项重要的课题,国内外的专家学者和相关的研究机构都做了大量的理论或实证性研究,但对于各国的主要或特色产业竞争力之间缺乏系统全面的思考。学术界对于产业国际竞争力中的产业研究范围很广,诸如医药卫生、教育、文化产业等一系列产业学术界都有所涉猎,但是这些研究之间都没有形成自己的体系,仅仅对产业的国际竞争力进行了简单的分析,还存在较多的问题和可以探究的地方值得我们去学习。通过借鉴和总结各国产业国际竞争力的研究内容,进行综述,从中找出研究成果的特点,从而为今后的进一步研究打下坚实的基础。     

Relations between technological and non-technological innovations in the service sector

In the economic literature, there is a debate on whether technological and non-technological innovations share the same determinants. As a result of this debate, two opposing views have emerged: the distinctive view argues that the determinants of both technologies are different; on the contrary, the integrative view considers that both types of technologies share determinants. The main objective that we pursue in this study is to test which of the two views is prevalent in the service sector of the Spanish economy. Analyses were performed using data from Spanish Technological Innovation Panel for the period 2008–2012. To perform hypothesis tests, the approach of complementarity was used. Our findings indicate that neither of the two approaches has been fully accredited, although the distinctive view is more prevalent. However, this radiography of relations tells us that companies can achieve further increases in productivity if technological innovation and non-technological innovation are implemented simultaneously.     

High skills,high growth: Is tourism an exception?

Despite the emphasis placed by growth models on technological progress, recent empirical evidence shows that tourism, a sector widely regarded as low-skill/low-tech and one of the fastest growing industries in the world, may offer a favorable strategy for growth. In addition, in this tourism-led growth literature it is not clear whether human capital plays a role. Using a panel of 72 countries (1980–2005) this study shed new light on the effect of tourism and human capital for economic growth. While our results confirm that the tourism sector indicator is always positive and significant in growth regressions they also show that increased education contributes to growth and that the role of the tourism sector is significantly larger in countries with higher aggregate levels of human capital. Our main results are robust to the inclusion of additional variables, the use of alternative estimators in the regression analysis and the use of different sub-samples. Overall, our results suggest that an increase in human capital endowments is always beneficial, even when the development strategy focuses on the expansion of a (successful) unskilled sector.     

Patterns of Industrial Conflict in Private Sector Service Industries: Evidence from British Survey Data

Patterns of industrial conflict in four major British service industries are analysed using large-scale survey data. The data confirm that strike rates are lower in the service sector than in manufacturing industry. In comparison with manufacturing, service sector establishments appeared less likely to experience multiple stoppages, their disputes involved a smaller proportion of the workforce and more workforce sections were found to be taking action for the first time. The major determinant of the pattern of industrial action appeared to be bargaining structures characterised by multi-employer, industry-wide agreements. The incidence of non-strike action and very short stoppages indicates that official strike returns significantly understate the extent of conflict in service industries.     

Can the Japanese Economy Rebound?

The Japanese economy has begun to show signs of recovery from its deepest post WWII recession. Although it is generally acknowledged that the recovery is not based on solid foundations, there is elation within Japan regarding the prospects for renewed economic growth. Yet little or no attention seems to be paid to what is happening to Japanese technological innovation, the engine that drives growth. The article shows that the impressive technological excellence of the famed Japanese companies is simultaneously accompanied by a decline in overall Japanese technological innovation. This is attributed to the dual nature of the Japanese economy, where super‐strong exporting industries co‐exist with super‐weak domestic sectors, and to Japan's adherence to outdated perceptions and policies. However, the potential for recovery is within reach: galvanise the backward leg of the dual economy and healthy growth would ensue; restore confidence in the healthy leg and things would be better still; add to this a recipe for responsible macroeconomic management and the prospects would be rosier.     

黑龙江省培育和发展战略性新兴产业研究

战略性新兴产业是以重大技术突破和发展需求为基础,对经济社会全局和长远发展具有引领带动作用,知识技术密集、物质资源消耗少、成长潜力大、综合效益好的产业。培育和发展战略性新兴产业是黑龙江省应对国际金融危机、转变经济发展方式的迫切需要。正确分析战略性新兴产业过程中存在的问题和挑战并提出对策建议,是实现黑龙江省经济社会健康可持续发展的客观要求。     

外商直接投资与我国产业技术边缘化的实证研究

本文选取37个工业行业为对象,通过对1998-2003年的行业面板数据分析,对外商直接投资与我国产业技术边缘化的关系进行实证研究,并从行业吸收能力、技术密集度和技术差距三个维度探讨对FDI技术溢出影响的效果与程度。结果显示,行业的技术边缘化程度与FDI流入存在正相关关系;行业的吸收能力越弱、行业的技术密集度越高,FDI加剧技术边缘化的程度越大;技术差距的影响没有得到证实。进而指出,真正的技术追赶只能通过我国产业获得参与技术生成和技术改进的过程来实现,增强我国产业的技术吸收能力及自主创新力是打破高技术行业技术依赖的根本所在。     

Technological complementarities, demand, and market power

Recent technological changes in many industries have generated numerous complementary technologies. A key implication of complementary technologies is that the demand for related services has tended to change both qualitatively and quantitatively. While the economics literature has examined various aspects, the effects of technological complementarity have not been fully flushed out. Using a simple model, this paper examines the implications of technological complementarity. How have firms’ pricing abilities changed with complementary technologies? What implications do complementary technologies have for regulation? Results show that technological complementarity has the potential to increase the market power of firms, possibly increasing prices to unprecedented levels. This holds whether demand elasticity is constant or variable. Policy implications are discussed.     

产业结构优化升级：新阶段和新任务

产业结构优化升级是经济持续增长的推动力。我国产业结构中存在的突出问题：自主创新能力不足，资源能源消耗仍然偏高，服务业发展明显落后；我国产业结构优化升级面临新的环境和挑战：重要资源国内供给压力加大，结构优化升级的成本上升，结构升级与就业压力的矛盾加大，开放带来的升级空间缩小；当前加快推进产业结构优化升级的主要任务：提高自主创新能力，特别是增强重要战略领域的自主创新能力，增强以我为主组合利用全球技术资源的能力，加强重要基础产业和基础设施建设，加快第三产业发展，继续发展劳动密集型产业。     

The Fourth Pillar? An assessment of the Situation of the Finnish Biotechnology

The success in constructing a flourishing information and telecommunication cluster has encouraged Finland to seek equal possibilities in other knowledge-intensive industrial branches. Presently, biotechnology is seen as an auspicious business area. Like in other parts of Europe, Finnish biotechnology concentrates mainly on pharmaceutical industries. More than 70 percent of the human resources of Finnish biotechnology industries is settled in this industrial branch.Despite large investments and financing, modern biotechnology industries are still a marginal industrial branch in the Finnish economy. Its turnover in 1999 was only one percent of the total GNP. The wide spectrum of Finnish higher education and the close relations of co-operation between universities and industries can open up promising prospects. Finland's technology-affirmative attitudinal climate works in the same direction. This progress can be delayed by a lack of highly skilled human resources, which is already a problem in the IT sector. The small size and minor experience in global markets have also limited the success of the Finnish firms.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTION,TECHNICAL CHANGE AND THE DYNAMICS OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

This paper explores the features of a dynamic multisectoral model that focuses on the relationship between income distribution, growth and international specialization. The model is explored both for the steady‐state properties and the transitory dynamics of integrated economies. Income inequality affects the patterns of growth and international specialization as the model uses non‐linear Engel curves and hence different income groups are characterized by different expenditure patterns. At the same time income distribution is also reflected in the relative wage rates of skilled to unskilled workers, i.e. the skill premium, and hence the wage structure affects comparative costs of industries which have different skill intensities. The model is applied to a situation that analyses qualitatively different economic development strategies of catching‐up economies (a ‘Latin American’ scenario and a ‘East Asian’ scenario).     

Entrepreneurial Enterprises,Large Established Firms and Other Components of the Free-Market Growth Machine

The paper studies the principal influences accounting for the unprecedented growth and innovation performance of the free-market economies. It indicates that vigorous oligopolistic competition, particularly in high-tech industries, forces firms to keep innovating in order to survive. This leads them to internalize innovative activities rather than leaving them to independent inventors, and turns invention into an assembly-line process. The bulk of private R&D spending is shown to come from a tiny number of very large firms. Yet the revolutionary breakthroughs continue to come predominantly from small entrepreneurial enterprises, with large industry providing streams of incremental improvements that also add up to major contributions. Moreover, these firms voluntarily disseminate much of their innovative technology widely and rapidly, both as a major revenue source and in exchange for complementary technological property of other firms, including direct competitors. This helps to internalize the externalities of innovation and speeds elimination of obsolete technology. Some policy implications for industrialized and developing countries are also discussed.     

Measuring the Magnitude of Significant Market Power in the Manufacturing and Services Industries: A Cross Country Approach

This paper provides estimates of price-marginal cost ratios for manufacturing and services sectors in the Eurozone, the US and Japan over the period 1970–2007. The estimates are obtained applying τhe methodology developed by Hall (J Pol Econ 96:921-947 1988) and extended by Roeger (J Pol Econ 103:316-331 1995) on the EU KLEMS March 2011 database. The empirical findings show that sectors that are more open to internationalisation such as textiles, experience relatively the lowest mark up ratios, while policy makers should enhance their policy in fragmented industries in which profitability indicators of market players indicate evidence of imperfect competition. The major stylized facts that are emerged from the empirical results based on the Ordinary Least Squares, Two Step Least Squares and Bootstrap methods of estimation are a) there is no evidence of imperfect competition across the majority of industries in Eurozone, US and Japan, b) sectors that are more open to internationalisation, experience relatively lower mark up ratios than the ratios experienced in less open sectors to internationalisation and c) deregulated industries generally have lower mark – up ratios than regulated industries, while fragmented industries generally exhibit higher mark – up ratios than segmented ones.     

Can Singapore maintain its competitive edge in manufacturing productivity vis-à-vis China and Malaysia?

This article investigates whether Singapore can maintain its competitive advantage in manufacturing from a labour productivity perspective vis-avis China and Malaysia, which are generally viewed as Singapore's competitors in manufacturing. We also investigate the extent to which China is closing the labour productivity gap with Singapore and Malaysia in technology-intensive segments of manufacturing. Our analysis reveals that China has the potential to develop a high labour-productivity and low-wage manufacturing sector. In terms of manufacturing labour productivity, China is moving towards convergence with Malaysia. Compared with Singapore, China's manufacturing labour productivity is still far behind, especially in key technology-intensive industries like electronics and chemicals, such that it is unlikely for China to catch up with Singapore within a decade.     

Technical efficiency and productivity growth of entrant firms in the retail sector in Spain

This paper analyses efficiency and productivity growth in relation to size, and age and for both entrant and incumbent firms using a birth cohort approach for the period 1995–2003 for two sectors, non-specialized shop (521) and specialized shop (524) three-digit NACE. On the one hand, our results indicate the existence of statistically significant differences among entrant and incumbent firms by size. Also, we found differences according to the start up size in relation to membership of the birth cohort and activity sectors. On the other hand, productivity growth shows that, in general, the larger entrants in the non-specialized sector obtained higher productivity than did small firms. This phenomenon was not observed in the specialized sector, where firms worsened in productivity in most of the cohorts and we did not find significant differences in productivity growth between large and small firms. Efficiency changes tend to be a positive contributor to total factor productivity change, but technical change tends to be a negative contributor for both sectors. A deeper analysis of the efficiency changes (catching up) has shown that these improvements are generally attributed to pure technical efficiency and the scale.